[38] I experienced much of the 1980s on the radio. Loved Messer, Gordon with some Scooter mixed in. Then, in the late 1980s, Greenwald and Hutton were also very good. I also loved Sterling and Johnstone (Sterling was actually the serious one).

[54] missy collazzo & rockin' roman. shit, i never knew it was a catholic university. my grandma may not have approved, haha!

funny - i was tracking marimba today and mentioned the 1st overkill album to my engineer! hilarious. that album ruled and still rules. i used to carry it to school with my, i loved it sooo much. their new album is all kinds of *amazing*! i'm going to see them - with forbidden - in november. cannot. fucking. wait.

[68] Anyone a Simpsons fan? Remember the episode where Homer makes a complaint to Mr. Burns about the applies in the vending machine? I feel like Girardi is Burns, the apples are Gaudin, and we're Homer.

[68] It's a real shame that the Yankees essentially lost three games to the Rays in September with Guadin or Mitre on the mound. Yankees are going to regret their casual attitude about this pennant race.

[67] true but with a .5 game lead and the rays playing the Mariners, orioles and Royals for 10 games and the yanks playing the sox for 6 and the jays for 3 there's just no way the Yanks could make a half game hold up. Hopefully joba can get out of this and we can get to price

Bah. The Yanks can still win the division. I would have signed up for a split 4 days ago. The fact that they won the first 2 games and then spit the bit is just a kick in the balls. Ya just can't predict.......

WTF, they just gave up SEVEN runs in one inning?? Is this another part of the battle-losing-war-winning strategy that I don't yet understand? A bit of "rope-a-dope" to lull them into false confidence??

Obviously, I've been as hard on Girardi as anyone these last few months. And he's still on my shit list for what he's done in games previous.

I was spared watching this steaming dump of a game (I'm wiped out and have been sleeping) - but I'm wondering if he doesn't have much blame tonight?

You have the lead with your ace on the mound - your ace completely shits the bed and is part of a freaking 7 spot? Girardi actually goes to one of the "premium(ish)" guys before the 7th, and that guy shits the bed, too?

Is this on Girardi, or is it how it looks from afar - completely on CC and Joba?

[133] I don't think I am alone but i HATE teams that don't go all out for the division..actually, I've come to think that the regular season banner is much more impressive than winning the WS..in the old days the "pennant" was such a big deal...the soccer leagues in Europe have it right: play one long season and the team at the top at the end is champs. Then have side tournaments for everyone to have some chance at hardware.

[137] I can't blame Girardi for that train wreck of a 5th. I blame him for taking the foot off the gas to a degree where this game became a must win for division hopes, but that's neither here nor there I guess. I mean, maybe you pull CC earlier, but you can't win there.

[139] I am right with you. In fact, even if they win the World Series, I don't think the season is a complete success. It really bothers me that the Yankees are no longer run by the notion of winning for winning's sake.

[143] The story as I remember it was that Ellis thought that the Pirates "feared" the Reds. To make a point that the Reds weren't the big and bad club that they were made out to be Ellis decided to plunk every Red in the lineup. He was unsuccessful.

He did pitch a no hitter on LSD, IIRC he got the days screwed up, and thought he was off. So he dropped a couple hits of acid, and got the call that he was supposed to pitch that day.

[165][167] Bandbox ballparks (Jingu Stadium where Yakult play is AAA size, very cozy), drumming, trumpets and chanting from first to last pitch, beer girls with kegs on their backs everywhere, hot bowls of noodles available..and sac bunts in the first inning!! Great fun all around :)

[168] I had the opportunity to see a pre-season game in 2009 between the Hanshin Tigers and Oryx Buffaloes. I experienced all you related including the launching of thousands of balloons during the break in the seventh inning. How long would the gathering of the balloons take without delaying the game? Not much more than the usual time our ads take up before play resumes. Out of centerfield came a small army of teens that gathered up the used balloons.

One perhaps disconcerting note is the net that extends down both sides of the foul line that keeps balls and bats from flying into the stands. It is better to sit higher so as not to have to watch the game through a net.

One final note - I liked the tribute displays to Ichiro and H. Matsui in the gift shop area.

I like the way the japanese play the game and present the game to the fans. Go if you can. BTW, there is no booing - wouldn't be polite.

[173] You wonder how they would take a game like tonight... stone silence? Or would booing be more interesting than before?

I can't stand it; half the team is coasting by permission of the manager and the other half is "disturbed" by it, but not riled up enough apparently to kick some ass. I want to give up and watch my Jets, but they've become complete assholes (when the owner becomes the good guy on the team, there is a real problem that no one wants to admit), then the Knicks have the opposite problem with a better team and an asshole owner.

How do I relieve my pent-up aggression and competitiveness here, draw the f@#$ out of some art?

[175] I'll work on it, but I'm also producing some more short films, so it'll be a little while...

Carmelo wants to come, but I'm not sure how likely it'll be. I'm hearing Denver will practically sell him straight up for cash (@$65 mil) which I'm not sure is allowed, but if it were then he'd be destined for NY as long as they can dump Curry. But as I said before, Carmelo alone's not the answer, they need a legit center to anchor the post and allow Melo, Amar'e and company to do their thing. Shaq is OPP, Yao may never play again, Ilgaukus OPP, Camby OPP, Kwame Brown's a stiff, etc. etc. I don't consider anyone under 7ft a legit NBA center unless they're monsters like Zo was, and a lot of the 7-footers in the game now don't dominate in the post anymore (or never have).

Then there's the fact that Mike D'Antoni's the wrong guy to lead a team that was already soft on defense before he got there. If they had chosen Mark Jackson, they might still have lost a lot of games, but I'll bet a lot more heads would have been flown. Plus he might have been able to pull in some of the crew from his heyday and bring some of that old jail ball flavor back.

It all comes down to the owner being a real scumbag douche to the point you'd believe Al Davis could run the Knicks better than he can, and who wants to play for a douche like him (unless you hand over a cool $100 mil, far more than your worth, but hey he's a douche and doesn't know or care about that)? If LeBron did one thing right during that whole fiasco, it was to back away from the Knicks.